Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1887-11-23
c AND ~RECAPTURE.

156, 2s6; 1887, 2lS,s29; increase, 62,543.
ESCAPE AND RECAPTURE.
Before daylight last Thursday morning ten
prisoners-two white men, a negro woman
and seven negro men--made their escape from
the Charlotte Jail, by making a hole in the outer
wall after forcing the cells in which all but the
woman were locked up. On Wednesday night
she feigned sickness and the jailor, through
compassion, permitted her to remain in the
corridor on the third story by the stove. The
instrument used was an iron stay, with which
they forced off one of the galleries. AS the
Chronicle relates it, after the jailor retired to
his room in the front part Of the Jail, the seven
colored prisoners, locked up in the cells on the
second story, commenced their task, and a
hole in the partition wall was soon dug, allow
ing all the prisoners to congregate in one cell.
With their iron pick they attacked the wall OF
this cell and soon made a hole large enough for
them to crawl through, and then they were in
the corridor. Noiselessly descending the stair
way, they went into the east corridor, the far
thest from the front part of the Jail, and select
ing a spot in the wall, they brought their bar
again into play. They were evidently averse
to scratching themselves, for they took out
a good CARLOAD of brick and made a hole
through which a man could easily crawl with
out tearing his clothes. Through this hole the
seven Jail birds crawled and skipped. In the
meantime, tn" invalid woman, whose cell door
on the third story had been leftopen, passed 6
plank through the grating connecting her cell
with that occupied by the four white men,
and with this they bent the iron bars out OF
position, making an opening through which
they had access to the unlocked cell OF the
woman. Two of the men crept through this
hole, and joining the woman, the three hurried
down stairs and went out through the hole
made by the seven negroes" Nine prisoners
were left in the Jail, some of whom could have
escaped with the others had they desired.
Gaining their liberty, they listed perhaps
they knew not whittier, but on Friday evening
the white man and the woman, after much adj
venture through bog and fen of Mecklenburg
narrowly escaping Scylla and ~Charybdis
found themselves confronting the placid wa
tiers of the majestic Catawba, and signaling thu
ferryman at Wright's, they were safely rowec
across. Whether the quiet, placid stream, re
minding the woman Of Lethe as she glidec
over its tranquil bosom, inspired her will
rapturous frenzy is not known; but olsen
DdI OH LuC WGSlcTu DdllhJ
exclaimed: "Bress de Lawd, we are now II
Souf Car'lina, where they have no laws" I'M
ferryman, a veritable Charon, having received
his fare, but overhearing the ejaculation OF th'
e~cstatic woman, thought there was something
wrong, his private opinion being that coming
in this direction his mysterious passengers
typically speaking, had only crossed the mys
tic Styx and were really in the gloomy, inexor
able realms of Pluto. Taking this matter O.
fact view of the situation, and coming directly
downt to business, he FASTENED to communicate
his suspicious to Deputy Sheriff W. j. Nicely
who lives near by, and acting with his charac
teristic promptness that officer pursued the eX
p%atriated couple, and on Saturday arrived II
Yorkville with them as prisoners. The mai
was labeled in Charlotte as Aaron Drucker, bu,
at the Hotel de Glenn, where the party took
dinner, he registered as Aaron Rocker. The
woman whose exalted opinion of South Caro-
lima was so suddenly checked, signed hersell
Maria Dawkins. They both acknowledged
that they were of the party that escaped from
the Charlotte Jail. While waiting for the train
Drucker or Rocker, who is a United States
prisoner, recounting his exploits, said he bag
broken from seven jails. His landlord th0
kindly showed him through the house al
which he was stopping, and he concluded tina
it might not be so easy to escape from as some
others the hospitality of which he had shared.
AS the hour for departure approached, the
woman, whose faith in South Carolina ways
was not entirely destroyed, insinuatingly sug'
gestedt to Deputy Nicely that she supposed the
officers in this State did not handcuff theil
prisoners. But this fond illusion was dispell'
ed by the Deputy producing a double bracelet
with one end of which he secured the right
wrist of the man, and with the other end the
left wrist of the woman and thus he departed
with them on Saturday evening for Charlotte